Finalist 2015 World Architecture Festival Awards (International)

​Finalist 2015 National Architecture and Design Sustainability Awards Australia

​Shortlisted 2015 Victorian Architecture Awards AIA Houses Alterations and Additions

​Shortlisted 2016 Houses Magazine

 

Starting with the ugliest house in the street on just 130sqm of land, this project recycles a1980s clinker brick town-house, and transforms it into a spacious and functional 21st century family home.  The focus is on adaptable reuse and sustainable design.

A new light-weight timber and steel structure is morphed onto the body of the old brick shell to provide in total, a top floor living level, a mid-floor sleeping level and a ground floor self-contained studio.

Taking its cues from the light industrial fabric of South Melbourne, the new addition is expressed in galvanised speedpanel cladding and a galvanised steel deck structure that is high and nest-like, its height ensuring that the winter sun reaches the ground floor living space facing north. 

The north facing courtyard/car space and top floor deck are enmeshed by a sculpted SS X-tend tensile structure, engineered to support deciduous vines to provide shade in summer and let the sun shine through in winter.

Photography:  Richard Glover

 

Client Testimony ‘…..Our energy bills are 1/3 of what we paid before even though we added a whole new floor to our existing house. Comfort, functional design and beauty add so much value to our daily life. We love being at home.'

Owner of Dreamcatcher